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Ninety-nine years of editorial freedom
Vol. C, No. 132 Ann Arbor, Michigan - Tuesday, April 17, 1990 TheMhigan
Subtle
by Noelle Vance
Daily Administration Reporter
harassment: how often is it reported?
When LSA junior Nicole Carson
received her graded American politics
midterm, she was surprised and an-
gered to find the "she" crossed off
every time she used the words "he or
she." The grader wrote that the words
"confused" his "reading habits."
Carson considered the incident to
be a form of classroom discrimina-
tion.
"I felt very angry and incredibly
excluded," she said. "I didn't under-
stand why he chose to cross off all
the shes."
Carson did not know she could
file a complaint with the Univer-
sity's Office of Affirmative Action.
Though she eventually confronted
the grader, by the time she learned
there were formal means of recourse,
she felt it was too late.
"It was near the end of the term,
and I just didn't know... ," she said.
So, like hundreds of other class-
room harassment and discrimination
cases, the incident went unreported.
Now Carson, vice chair of the
Michigan Student Assembly
Women's Issues Commission and
student representative for the Presi-
dent's Advisory Commission on
Women's Issues, is soliciting simi-
lar stories for a booklet the two
commissions will publish next fall.
Out of 500 questionnaires circulated
throughout the University, approxi-
mately 100 have been returned.
"We're finding that there defi-
nitely is a problem," Carson said.
Women,are reporting feeling ex-
cluded when faculty members make
off-the-cuff sexist remarks or use
gender-exclusive language. There are
incidents of TAs making sexual in-
nuendos to students.
And some men report they are
afraid to say anything in the class-
room because if they address certain
issues, they will be called sexist,
Carson said.
Classroom harassment and sexual
harassment are two of the most un-
derreported types of harassment, ac-
cording to university studies and na-
tional surveys.
Often, the harassment is so sub-
tle that the student is not sure it's
actually happening and will not re-
port it, said Brian Durrance of the
Lesbian and Gay Men's Rights Or-
ganizing Committee.
Or the harassment is directed to-
ward a group and not an individual,
said Bill Aseltyne, member of the
Lesbian and Gay Law Student Al-
liance.
For instance, the topic of AIDS
once came up in Aseltyne's insur-
ance law class, and several of his
classmates made remarks he consid-
ered to be homophobic.
"I was afraid to speak up... They
weren't doing anything to me, but it
was the environment," he said.
Remarks made against a group,
as opposed to an individual, cannot
be punished under the University's
interim discriminatory harassment
policy and for that reason may be
unreported.
ait the'U
PART TWO: The unreported story
TOMORROW: Handling complaints
"Ninety-nine percent of the time
harassment occurs between people
who know one another," said Julie
Steiner, director of the Sexual As-
sault Prevention and Awareness Cen-
ter (SAPAC).
Students frequently are afraid to
take formal action because they
think they will ruin the relationship
or risk receiving further retaliation,
Steiner said.
One woman, who wishes to re-
main anonymous, never reported her
professor for sexual harassment after
he kissed her because "I thought we
could still be friends," she said.
Students also fail to report ha-
rassment because they don't know
about the University's harassment
policies, said Darlene Ray-Johnson,
administrator for the student anti-dis-
criminatory harassment policy.
Third parties report more infor-
mation about harassment to the Of-
fice of Student Services than do vic-
tims, Johnson explained.
"Few victims actually come in,
but someone else will call... We
make contact with the victim and
ask if they are interested in filing a
complaint," Johnson said.
A study by the Women's Caucus
of the Political Science Department
found that while almost all women
who experienced sexual harassment
in the department spoke of their ex-
periences with a friend or graduate
student, only a few reported the inci-
dents to the University.
"Only people close to the victim
may hear about the incident," said
Tali Mendlebahn, a Rackham student
who conducted the study. "It's clear
there is a problem of underreport-
ing," she said.
University policy requires all ha-
rassment incidents to be reported to
the Affirmative Action Office for
statistical purposes.
But "the University hasn't done a
very good job of keeping track of the
numbers or telling us how many re-
ports (there are)," SAPAC Director
Steiner said. Steiner said in the past,
the Affirmative Action Office relayed
harassment statistics between the of-
fices which deal with such cases, but
in recent years those statistics have
stopped coming.
Affirmative Action normally re-
leases an annual summary of the ha-
See HARASSMENT, Page 2
Local
homeless
take over
2d house
by Sarah Schweitzer * . f
Students to help
Poland
MBA students travel to Poland to help with
its transition to a free market economy'
As part of their continuing at-
tempt to stop the Ann Arbor City
Council from building parking struc-
tures until they construct more af-
fordable housing, the Homeless Ac-
tion Committee (HAC) has taken
over another house behind the pro-
posed parking structure on W.
William St. and Main St.
Last November, HAC took over
a house on Ashley St., where they
are currently housing adults on a
temporary basis.
The W. William St. house,
which the city plans to tear down for
an $8 million parking structure, has
been occupied by two homeless fam-
ilies.
The two families moved into the
vacant house on April 6, with HAC
providing for heating, water, and
other utilities.
Tracy Cipolletti, a mother of
three and one of the new residents of
the W. Williams house, said she
will leave the house as soon as the
city finds her "safe and affordable
housing."
If the city tries to make her move
See HAC, page 2
by Ian Hoffman
Daily Staff Writer
One hundred and forty years ago Horace Greeley's
advice to ambitious adults was, "Go West young man."
Were he alive today, Mr. Greeley might have sug-
gested a different direction.
The Business School announced yesterday that five
University MBA students will be traveling to Poland
for three months this summer. The students will help
the recently converted Communist country make a
smooth transition to a market economy.
The students selected were Carolyn Kley, MBA 1;
Kenneth Knister, MBA 1; James McKeon, Evening
MBA; Eric Mikesell, MBA 1; and Michael Shingler,
MBA 2.
Edwin Miller, associate dean of research at the
School of Business Administration, first thought of the
idea for the Michigan Business Assistance Corps (MBA
Corps) last year.
"I was asking a colleague, 'How does the B-school
relate to the changes in Eastern Europe?"' said Miller.
"We came up with a lot of options and I said, 'I want to
follow up on that."'
Miller said the students will perform a variety of
jobs while they are in Poland. Two of the MBA Corps
participants will share their expertise with the Ministry
of Finance's Bureau of Privatization by valuing assets
of publicly held companies to prepare them for sale to
private interests. Two other students will go to Gdansk
to work for private companies, and one student will as-
sist a computer software company in Krackow.
Marion Krzyzowski, director of the Great Lakes
Trade Adjustment Assistance Center in the School of
Business, helped the students find positions. Krzy-
zowski has worked with leaders of Poland's Solidarity
Movement - many of whom are leaders in Poland's
present government and newly formed private industry
- for the past 12 years.
"My role has been to line up and coordinate the Pol-
ish end of it," said Krzyzowski.
He added that while deteriorated communication
channels in Poland make creating the necessary ar-
rangements for the program difficult, "There is a
tremendous need for these MBA students. Everyone I
talked to would have taken all the participants."
To prepare for their trip, the five students are tenta-
tively scheduled to enroll in a one-month crash course
on Polish culture, history and politics at the Center for
Russian and East European Studies (CREES) this May.
"We will give them not so much language help as a
common framework in which to operate, a common set
of ideas," said Roman Szporluk, director of CREES.
"This is not a consulting job; we don't do consult
ing jobs," Szporluk added. "It is a service we are provid-
ing because this is an exciting opportunity."
Students selected for the program reacted enthusiasti-
cally.
"I was thrilled; it's an incredible opportunity," said
Knister. "It's a chance to really make a difference. The
resource they are most lacking is management exper-
tise."
"I was pretty excited," echoed Mikesell. "It means I
have a summer job."
The students will receive between $1500 and $2000
for each month they work in Poland. In addition, the
business school will provide them with approximately
$35 per day for living expenses and fly them to Poland
at no cost.
KENNETH SMOLLER/Daity
A sign waves outside the
Action Committee April 6.
W. William house taken over by the Homeless
LAGROC adds to
existing demands
Lithuanian Pres.
asks Gorbachev
for dialogue
by Frank Krajenke
Daily Staff Writer
The Lesbian and Gay Men's
Rights Organization Committee
(LAGROC) is demanding that the
University eradicate organizations
and policies which restrict
discrimination against gay males and
lesbians.
LaGROC presented three new
demands and 9 previous ones to
President James Duderstadt on April
1.
The new demands call for the
termination of the Task Force on
Sexual Orientation, dissolution of
the Office of Affirmative Action and
annulment of the Policy Statement
on Sexual Orientation.
Though LAGROC's position
Concerning direct actions by
President James Duderstadt to
effectualize LAGROC's requisitions,
Mary Anne Swain, associate vice
president for academic affairs ,said
"He is not going to (fulfill the
demands). None of these are useful
xyays of resolving grievances.
(The Task Force on Sexual
Orientation, the Office of Af-
firmative Action and the Policy
Statement on Sexual Orientation) are
the underpinnings of support for the
Gay and Lesbian community; to
dismantle them would cut off
support (to the gay and lesbian
student community)," Swain said.
LAGROC's agenda should
awaken students to the illusory
power within instruments employed
MOSCOW (AP) - Lithuania
asked Mikhail Gorbachev yesterday
to meet with the republic's president
to provide details of Moscow's
threatened economic sanctions so
that Lithuanians can be prepared.
It would be Gorbachev's first
meeting with Lithuanian president
Vytautas Landsbergis, who was
elected after the republic declared it-
self independent March 11.
In a telegram to the Soviet presi-
dent, Lithuanian Prime Minister
Kazimieras Prunskiene said Lithua-
nia wants to explain to its people
just what the difficulties they might
face if they ignore an ultimatum
Gorbachev issued Friday. He gave
Lithuania 48 hours to rescind some
of its pro-independence laws or face a
rumi-ff rof nrndnurtQ the K remlin cn
the Soviet economy as well as
Lithuania's. She suggested the best
way to clarify the threat would be in
a meeting in Moscow with a
Lithuanian delegation, headed by
Lansbergis.
There was no immediate re-
sponse from the Soviet president.
Another Lithuanian leader was
quoted as saying the republic would
be willing to pay hard currency for
Soviet goods but would expect
Moscow to do the same for items.
Lithuania exports.
Vilnius Radio quoted Prunskiene
as saying Lithuanian leaders decided
that "until" we see definite physical
measures against Lithuania's indus-
try and economy,k all contractual
oblig~ations to the U.S.S.R. must
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